You asked

how do other biblical figures express feelings of abandonment by god, and what are their outcomes?

Adds the setting and its conversation across both testaments.

Psalm 22:1-2

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning? My God, I cry in the daytime, but you don't answer; in the night season, and am not silent.”

Psalm 22 is a lament, one of many poetic prayers in the book of Psalms expressing deep distress. The author, traditionally King David, cries out to God from a place of profound suffering and feeling utterly abandoned, even as he remembers God's past faithfulness.

What does it mean to voice deep distress to God, even when silence is the only apparent response?

Then — the setting

This psalm likely emerged from the experience of a king or individual leader in ancient Israel, possibly King David, facing intense personal suffering, public scorn, or even military defeat in the late second or early first millennium BCE. The psalmist expresses a deep conviction that God has abandoned him, which was a terrifying prospect for someone whose identity and security were intertwined with God's covenant loyalty. Such laments were not seen as faithless, but as a legitimate and even necessary form of prayer within Israelite worship, expressing the full range of human emotion to God.

Across the Testaments

The Old Testament, particularly the Psalms and prophetic books, is rich with expressions of feeling abandoned by God (e.g., Job, Jeremiah, Lamentations). These often arise from personal suffering, national calamity, or perceived divine silence. The New Testament deeply engages with Psalm 22, most notably when Jesus cries out its opening line, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' from the cross (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34). This connects Jesus's suffering directly to the experience of profound human abandonment, echoing ancient laments while also reinterpreting them in light of his unique role and sacrifice. While Old Testament figures often see an eventual resolution or deliverance within their lifetime, Jesus's cry foreshadows a different kind of outcome: resurrection and ultimate vindication, but only after a death experienced as total abandonment.

Keep thinking

Read alongside it

Psalm 13:1
David questions how long God will forget and hide his face from him.
Job 19:6-7
Job feels God has wronged him and shut him in with his net, yet God does not answer his cry for justice.
Lamentations 3:8
The prophet laments that God shuts out his prayer when he cries and shouts.

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